It Could Be Worse...It Could Be Raining : Ambulance Response Time and Health Outcomes

The cost-effectiveness of medical treatments is not precisely known because of the compounding effect of multiple factors. Ambulance response time to emergency calls is exploited to learn more about the effect of the timing of treatments on health. This causal relation is identified by exploiting rainfall at the time of the ambulance run as a shock to responsiveness. A one minute increase in response time increases the probability of severe cardiovascular conditions by 1.6 percentage points and increases the likelihood that the patient dies by 0.7 percentage points (in aggregate, 105 deaths each year). Finally, the economic value of time is quantified, and it is shown that improving the ambulance’s ability to locate the scene would substantially increase efficiency